By-elections in India are held only when there is more than six months left for the next election after an Assembly or Lok Sabha seat becomes vacant. But only a few by-elections are able to attract people’s attention. At present by-elections are proposed on three assembly seats. These include Bankipur in Bihar, Datia in Madhya Pradesh and Manjalpur assembly seat in Gujarat. There is hardly any discussion about Manjalpur, but Datia and Bankipur by-elections are in the headlines for different reasons. Politically, the by-elections for both the seats have generated interest among the people. But this interest may prove to be short-lived, as the ruling party in both the states appears to remain the choice of a large number of voters. Statistics also show that in by-elections, the first choice of most of the voters is the ruling party of the state. In the last five years, by-elections were held on 153 assembly seats in various states. Of these, 119 seats were won by the ruling party or coalition, representing a 78% success rate. Whereas candidates of opposition parties or alliances could win only 34 seats. His success rate was 22%. The same pattern has been visible in the context of by-elections for the last five years. Before the current by-elections, 7 other by-elections were held in 2026 and all the seats were won by the state’s ruling party or alliance. By-elections were held on 15 seats in 2025, out of which 9 seats were won by the party or coalition in power in the state, while 6 went to the opposition. The picture of 2024 was also no different. In the by-elections held that year on 86 seats, 69 seats were won by the ruling party/alliance, while 17 were won by the opposition parties/alliances. In 2023, out of 17 by-elections, the ruling party/alliance won 12 seats and 5 seats went to the opposition candidates. Similarly, in the by-elections of 28 seats in 2022, the ruling party or alliance was victorious on 22 and the opposition candidates could win only 6 seats. The by-elections of Datia and Bankipur have generated political interest. Especially when BJP changed its candidate from Bankipur assembly seat and former Madhya Pradesh Home Minister Narottam Mishra was not given ticket from Datia, BJP workers came out in protest against it. Mishra has been a strong leader of the state. But the party decided to make Ashutosh Tiwari its candidate in his place. BJP had earlier declared Abhishek Kumar Sinha as its candidate for Bankipur seat too, but he refused to contest the elections citing family reasons. After this BJP gave ticket to Neeraj Kumar Sinha. Bankipur seat is also in the headlines because Jan Suraj Party leader Prashant Kishore is making his electoral debut from here. It is noteworthy that his party had contested Bihar elections for the first time in the year 2025, but Prashant himself did not contest from any seat. The party’s performance in the elections was disappointing. She got only 3.5% votes and could not even open an account. It is important to understand that Datia and Bankipur seats are not in discussion because the opposition has fielded powerful leaders in them or because there is going to be a very interesting election contest here. Both these by-elections are being discussed for some other reasons. It appears that there is some turmoil within the BJP, which is considered an unusual situation. Due to this, both these by-elections have become interesting. The 153 by-elections of the last 5 years indicate a trend. That an average Indian voter prefers to vote for a party rather than a candidate. Smaller states may be an exception to this, where the popularity of the candidate also plays an important role. (These are the author’s own views)
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Sanjay Kumar’s Column: What does the trend of by-elections in politics point to?
